


Garden of Stone and Clay

by PGT



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Crisis of Faith, Established Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Religion, Slow Burn, Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:54:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22813423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PGT/pseuds/PGT
Summary: It has been 20 years since the Mighty Nein lost Fjord to a trans-dimensional portal. While Caleb and Veth promise to be seeking a solution, time has caused many of the group to move on. Caduceus is determined to wait for his husband, even after the Mighty Nein retires. When Fjord does come back, it isn't as simple a reunion as Caduceus would hope, and both parties must cope with years of separation and emotional damage.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was begun at episode 94 and reflects that in what is understood as canon and what is my personal headcanons. this may not hold up and that's ok! I'm trying something different here, and I want this to ultimately be at least 50k? If you look at my library you'll see that's a challenge for me so I'll take all the support I can get!

There was almost no visual stimulus and everything sat behind a grey veil in the Astral Plane. With the constant grey, there was a shrill roar in Fjord’s ears, akin to that beneath rushing water and equally as suffocating. Occasionally, the groan of beasts could be heard beneath the humming, but there was no way of telling how far a creature was. Distance was immeasurable; no landmarks to refer to, no horizon or landscape. Fjord simply moved forward in an empty expanse, sword out in a firm grasp, long worn clothes stained with sweat, blood and musk.

He found himself relying less and less on his senses. The ground beneath him didn’t shake with the footstep of nearby beasts-- few truly “stepped,” for that matter. The fog surrounding him gave little warning before a threat became imminent, as did what sounds they made. If his existence here was punishment for reaching out impulsively, the irony that a mind suited for thinking in the moment was all that kept him standing was apparent.

For years-- it must have been years, he reasoned-- his hair had grown ragged and untamed, only cut cautiously with his falchion blade in a moment of silence and peace. His body had grown more muscular than Melora’s touch or Beau’s training could have gifted him through endless survival. His stomach ached constantly for food it seemingly did not require. When he slept, on those sweet occasions in which the hazy environment was empty, the beasts still and silent, he rested fitfully, dreaming in colors he could no longer remember painting faces he missed excruciatingly. Most often he saw Beau, who had reached out in his last moments with the party. But apart from her, he dreamed most of Caduceus, who he spent long nights awake with, long mornings in tranquil contemplation with. Caduceus, who had told him his family was theirs, if Fjord would have it, who confessed his fantasies of a future for them Fjord couldn’t imagine living up to.

But it had been ages since then, and his waking mind refused to look back, refused to consider those who he had cherished, to wonder why they’d left him here so long. When he let his mind slip, he decided they had abandoned him. Or that they had come to save him, and were lost far in the distance, somewhere he could never reach. Perhaps one of the many beasts he had slain or fled from slowly digested his family in their stomach.

So he didn’t think about them. He simply kept moving forward, determined to live, rescue be damned.

When he felt warmth, he paused in his constant stalk through the mist. There was no temperature to the Astral Plane; it was an expanse of determined featurelessness in all ways. The only moments he felt warmth were those where tears fell down his nose, or when blood dripped down his arms. But he hadn’t been in a fight for more than ten thousand steps, now. There was no blood falling, and when he touched his cheeks they were dry. He turned behind him, finding no source to the warmth which was slowly growing to a heat. He stepped forward, and the heat followed him. With his sword, he cast Faerie Fire, finding nothing. He felt his breathing begin to heave, and he stood in a defensive stance. With nothing to defend against however, he could do nothing but wait.

The warmth turned to heat and the heat turned white-hot-- quite literally, the expanse surrounding him fading from the constant grey haze to a blinding white.

For just a moment, the white became green, and suddenly Fjord could see nothing, and fell unconscious. 

-

“Is he home?” Caduceus asked his garden once more. He held a teacup above crossed legs, though he did not bring it to his lips, preferring to breathe in the fragrance. He let his eyes close as the wind fluttered through his hair, anticipating the same apologetic negative his goddess had responded with for the past twenty years. It came, and even after all this time he felt his heart drop, a soft sigh falling from his lips. 

  
He dismissed his other commune questions, rarely using them anymore. He thanked Melora for her time, and sat just a little longer in the warm morning light before finally sipping his tea.

When his eyes open, he let them fall across the statues that littered his garden. When he’d picked up the art, something Jester had encouraged, he only ever found himself carving one figure, though it was never quite right. Much like Fjord himself, the statues Caduceus created were enigmatic, refusing to take shape, expression and features inconsistent and imperfect. It had become a compulsion at this point to spend his days slaving away at these sculptures, eyes locked on eyes that refused to quite look back. He didn’t believe that making the perfect statue would bring Fjord back, but he found no counter reasoning for the sculptures. Perhaps he was just trying not to forget.

Tomorrow would be twenty years since Fjord had been lost. In his newest sculpture, he found himself trying to reflect that. He usually made Fjord just how he remembered; tusks only barely peeking from behind a dopey grin, scars fresh against his upper lip and left brow. His hair varied, depending on Cad’s mood, though it was usually the longer style he’d worn it in later in their adventures, tied in a small ponytail, white shock too short to tie and falling neatly in front of his face. He varied from clothed to nude to armored in Caduceus’ garden, varied in expression, in setting, in story. Some worked the rigging of the Balleater, arms flexing prominently beneath his white undershirt. Others he writhed against Uk’toa, and yet more he was embraced by Melora, sheathed within a capsule of kelp and algae as he once was, reborn as a paladin. Some lay incomplete, busts or limbs outstretched from flat stones, but none bore any damage, Melora’s garden protecting them from the damage of rainfall, and Caduceus sure to protect them from collapse. He could never find it in himself to destroy them, even those from early on, those he barely recognized as Fjord. Some days he wondered if those were what Fjord really did look like, that perhaps he had completely forgotten, replaced him with false memories.

Today, his eyes settled on a piece extended from stone, incomplete. Fjord’s chest and arms were smoothly carved of a white marble, hand pressed against his heart where a symbol of Melora was clutched. He had started the piece a few months ago, and still wasn’t sure where to go from here. He imagined Fjord older in this piece but just didn’t know how to approach it. In twenty years, what would Fjord have grown to look like? Would he have kept his beard trim, grown his hair out? Perhaps he’d lose all of that young muscle, stomach no longer quite as firm as it once was. How many more scars would decorate his skin?

He never considered himself an artist-- he was never the one making headstones, not even now. When grieving families came to mourn or inter a new body, they often requested it, once it was made known that the statuary was his credit. But the spell fell flat in his palms if it wasn’t for Fjord. 

He finished his tea and approached the statue that clutched Melora’s symbol. On the way, he took a small lump of clay from a pot and kneaded it in one hand. He let the spell come to life, the smell of cooking ceramic filling his nose. Before him, the marble block shifted, Fjord’s torso extending downward, each braid in his leather belt painstakingly detailed, each fold in his pants practiced and intentional. For the greater part of the morning he stood before the stone figure, simply trying earnestly to remember, and to reflect what changes might have come since then.

In the evening, he made himself go into town. It had been a long time since he had left the walls of his haven, but his statues required material. It was a two hour trek from his garden to Port Demali, time in which Caduceus noted the health of the tropical flora and fauna on the route, and thanked Melora for her protection of the land. He was not approached by bandit nor beast, known by the land as a holy man, and known by bandits as someone able to decompose a living man with a click of fingers, if necessary. It had been a long time since he’d found need to do so.

The crooning of jungle birds above soon faded to the rumble of ocean against rocky shore and ocean gull cries. A great portion of his walk was on the wet sand and rock that made the beaches south of Port Demali. He had never loved the open expanse, but it was yet another piece of Fjord he carried with him.

Beau had once mentioned that it was unhealthy, how he was coping. Caduceus agreed, but found it a weak reason to stop. She stressed that it would only hurt him, that there wasn’t any sure way to bring him back, that there wasn’t a certainty that Caleb, Veth and Essek combined would ever bring him home. 

This sentiment only fertilized the sense of urgency within him, the desperation to find Fjord in everything. Beau knew it was different for him then everyone else, and eventually let it be.

Entering the city Caduceus was barraged with civilized life. No matter how many years he had traveled city to city with the Mighty Nein, the noise of a city always caused his ears to fall flat to his skull and his thin tail flicking anxiously. Criers announced the news, mothers chided their children for running through crowds. Animals brayed and clomped through mud and pavement, wheels groaned, and people chattered. When he neared the portside market, the noise was only amplified, and added to it was the clinking of merchandise, barterers shouting, auctioneers babbling and the creaking of wood beneath his feet, as if the docks were deciding whether to toss him into the ocean with every step.

He preferred the stillness of nature. Even in its chaotic moments, nothing of nature could compare to a city’s volume. He had been happy to walk these streets with Fjord, who’s voice seemed to dominate the city, but without a partner Port Demali had become a bothersome part of his life.

In the port market, he found a merchant peddling fresh stone from Tal’dore, the kind Caduceus always spent the most on. Though it was a hefty penny, whitestone was an artisan material and enchantable, something Caduceus had considered having incorporated into more than one piece. The merchant also offered cheaper limestones and granites, and for the larger piece he had in mind, Caduceus was looking at the limestone.

Price was no matter to him, and with little desire to barter Caduceus purchased the largest stone block with little squabble and a large tip for the transportation fee. With that matter dealt with and little more to do in the large port city, Caduceus returned to the shore, letting the afternoon sky warm him, examining the beach sand for driftwood to incorporate into smaller pieces. When he found what he needed, he was still reticent to leave. He watched the waves lap ashore, let them rush over his sandaled feet. The cool touch of saltwater was refreshing, and yet it made him hurt. He did not cast any spell, and did not really expect an answer, but still the words slipped from his lips:

“Will you come back?”

The waves lapped apathetically back, sweeping between his toes and soaking into the cork base of his shoe. The sun glistened off of blue-green water, flickering light an unintelligible message Caduceus didn’t dare to interpret. 

By the time he finally dragged himself away from the sands it was sundown. Caduceus made no attempt to hide the soft sorrow that graced his expression, and set out on the long walk home.

Night came just as Caduceus reached the gate of his garden. Dozens of faces greeted him, but he felt little relief from their empty expressions. He settled into his evening routine, setting out oblations in a statue’s outstretched hands, one holding a burning stick of incense and the other a pitcher of herbal tea. This Fjord was one of him emerging from the kelp cocoon, plantlife draping him modestly while also giving a sense of weightlessness, the statue appearing underwater. He smiled softly at this one, if nothing else admiring his own artistic merit, appreciating the form of the man he loved, even if he was certain it was off, somewhere. While the statues left him with something to remember Fjord, they made him crave his presence so much more, if not as the man he loved, as a reference, so that he could be certain every muscle and contour was perfect.

He kissed this statue, whether as an oblation to Melora or to Fjord he wasn’t certain himself. He stepped away from this and started on making his own meal, a meal for two at a table made of wood in the modest kitchen of his home. When the second meal was left abandoned, he composted it, and cleaned both dishes. He set herbs out for drying and raked dead leaves in the cemetery grounds. He cleaned headstones and refilled the bird feeders in the surrounding trees. 

By the time he was finally tired, the moon shon proudly overhead, insisting he take to his bed. Even when he finally crawled into a bed made for two, a long extent passed before he finally closed his eyes.

\--

Sometimes, his old friends would come to visit. It was most often Jester, who lived closest. Beau and Caleb were next frequent, Caleb’s abilities and Beau’s access making travel a small issue. But as the cemetery slowly filled with statues, their presence became less frequent, and when they did come, their expressions were strained.

Jester had been open to him about it, much like Beau had. She stepped from statue to statue, taking in the figures, nodding approvingly at the artisanship, smirking at what little immaturity she could create from a nude form. Even Jester had a hard time pulling a smile at the figure when they all sensed the same thing: that he wasn’t coming back, that Caduceus wasn’t going to take that, that these statues were all Caduceus had left. Even if the hobby had originally been given her support, she silently worried for the fellow cleric, for what it would ultimately mean if Caleb, Essek and Veth gave up.

As it was, the spell was on a back burner. Caleb was a professor now, and Essek was busy enough keeping up with government responsibilities post war. Veth could only do so much on her own without any formal training, and no one could truly ask her to take more time away from her family, even if it was for Fjord.

Jester knew there was a decline in faith from the group’s less, well, faithful. Even Yasha, who had refused to accept another loss in her story, had come to mourn him annually. The arcanists had tried to move on with their lives while still trying to keep what hope Caduceus had alive.

“I remember the scar on the other side,” she critiqued, pointing to her own lip where the statue’s skin was unmarred. Caduceus shook his head confidently at this. Of anything, Fjord’s lips were easiest to remember. Jester gave in, trusting Caduceus’ memory over her own. After all, he had a garden of reminders. She paced towards him, where he sat on a headstone, a teacup empty at his side and a small ball of clay in his hands. He looked to the large block of stone that had recently taken up much of his garden’s eastern wall.

While Jester’s visits were often for his own health, or simply to chat, Caduceus often took the chance to borrow the elder artist’s eye. “I want to sculpt his return.”

He didn’t look at Jester, not wanting to see the pity that must reflect in her eyes. He instead thought of the younger version of her, with hair more blue than white, face soft without wrinkles. The girl who refused to show sadness, who forgave at the first chance, who he’d never known to bear a grudge. 

“That sounds very final,” Jester mused, sitting on a stone near the one Caduceus sat upon. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

He heard it in her voice. Some mix of fear, pity, hope. He fixated on that younger image instead of analyzing it.

“I’m just trying something different.”

They spent the evening designing the piece. Jester sketched what his hands were too inexperienced to pull from his mind. She decorated the margins in the way she always did, but rather than for mischief it was a manner of idle thought. Fjord stepped from the ocean, something Caduceus was determined to function as a reflecting pool. Seabirds pulled him up from his shoulders, while fish and turtles ushered him onto land. On the shore Melora would stand, hand extended in greeting to her returned child. 

“She smiles, because she loves him. She’s happy he’s back. But I want her to look upset, too. Apologetic that she couldn’t have done more.”

Jester pulled a face, and her arm slowed in sketching. It was rare that Caduceus spoke with any anger in his tone, unheard of when referring to his Goddess, but she hadn’t imagined it.

He was upset with her. How long had he been? Bitter that his god could do nothing to return his lover, yet tending to a cemetery in her name, healing with her power, granting her offerings nightly? She could never perfectly understand Caduceus’ relationship with Melora, not when hers with the Traveler was so different. But she didn’t need to relate to know that it was strange, and that it worried her.

She tried to draw Melora as Caduceus wished. For a long stretch, she simply worked on the natural reflection of her domain in the relief. Caduceus had named several specific flowers, which he defined as each having a purpose. She created a modest drapery over Melora’s body, covering her nudity and creating a line of motion that extended from her contrapposto stance to her extended arm, pointing towards the subject of the piece. 

“He looks plain.” Caduceus critiqued.

“He’s standing next to a god,” was all Jester could counter with. But if Fjord was supposed to be the subject, Caduceus was right; something needed to be different. She sketched in his sword, thin stonework showing a trail of droplets that connected him to the water below.

Caduceus huffed, and Jester knew this drawing was for the scrap pile. “That’s enough, I’ll try to think of another composition.”

He patted a thankful hand on Jester’s shoulder, and trudged his way into his home, whether for more tea or perhaps a moment to himself, Jester wasn’t sure. She let him be, and looked at the panel before her. 

When she was young, before she truly knew herself or what love was, she had thought she’d loved Fjord. And perhaps she did, but not in the way she thought. She loved Fjord in the same way that she loved Caduceus, or Caleb. They were all important to her, she would lay her life down for them. But sometimes it wasn’t that simple. She could hold Caduceus’ hand through his grief, she could fight alongside Caleb against his abusers. 

But Fjord was gone. Even as a cleric, she could only do so much. The spells she had required a body. Caduceus knew that as well as she did, but while she had pushed past it, Caduceus had buried that truth, exchanged it for an alternative solution. If they didn’t have a body, Fjord must not be dead.

She had heard him in the mornings. He always asked Melora the same question: ”Is he home?” He never spoke of death. He refused to ask about the future. If he wasn’t home now, that didn’t mean he was dead. If he wasn’t home now, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be tomorrow. She’d asked Artagan once the questions Caduceus didn’t dare, but he had no clear answer. “The cost of being on this side of the Divine Gate,” he’d said.

She thought about the drawing before her, thought about the man it depicted and the goddess beside him, who’s sorrowful expression did not reflect in her polite gesture. She had her own opinions about Melora, and all of the prime gods. She wondered if the being that supervised nature itself had even batted an eye at their loss. At one of her own faithful’s mourning, at another’s death or otherwise. Did she know where Fjord was? Did she know he was dead, keeping it from Caduceus and letting him draw out his own misery?

The smell of chamomile drifted from the windows behind her, and with one last look at Melora’s expressionless visage, she rose to join Caduceus for tea.


	2. Chapter 2

Funeral processions were few and far between, those of Melora’s faith often sailors, preferring traditional seafarer’s funerals where bodies are given to the sea. 

But every once in a while, a child of Melora would die, and the deceased’s family or will would prefer a more standard burial. In these situations, Caduceus’ regular routine would be stunted, morning tea replaced with embalming chemicals or decompositional procedures, whichever was requested. His communion would be traded for a ceremony, blessing the body and the passed soul so that they would travel undisturbed by evil. Instead of expending his spells before dawn shaping limestone he dug graves and assorted flower arrangements. He wrote letters ordering headstones from masons in town if the family wasn’t providing one. He arranged death certificates if they were requested, and communicated with law-bearers if the death was unnatural. 

It was a busy contrast to his typical rituals, but he took little time accounting for how the work distracted him from the constant shadow plaguing him. Fjord wasn’t something he wanted to forget, or to be distracted from. His work was his work, his faith was his faith, but they did not take precedence over Fjord.

Today was one of those days, where a mournful adult son and father had come bearing a woman wrapped in cloths provided by the temple in town. 

Caduceus guided them into his home and helped them ease her onto the procedural table. The forest was too dense to traverse with a cart, and the men looked too poor for steeds of their own. They must have carried her the whole way, and their appearances reflected that; sweat dotting their brows, chests heaving, and bodies bent inward from muscle tension.

“When was the time of death?” Caduceus asked. Clinical questions generally came first, it was easier to get the details before he broke any emotional dams. The father answered: Grissen, three nights ago.

The body matched, about as developed as a body would be in the Menagerie Coast’s humid weather even with whatever delaying spells or tonics the local temple may have offered.

He settled that it was a natural death, little argument was raised at this conclusion. The family requested a burial returning her to the earth rather than preserving her, returning her to Melora quickly so that she could watch her children grow from above.

Caduceus requested the menial offering that was the fee for burial, and wrote a note to for the family to return home with that would get them a simple headstone from any artisan. As farmers in the midst of harvest, the men had little issue paying with a hefty satchel of citrus fruits. After the transaction Caduceus offered any emotional services they might desire. 

“I’m not sure how we’ll do with a baby,” the father confessed, removing a patched hat to rub at a bare scalp in duress. “Neither of us have much time with the orchard. Winter will be alright, trees won’t be growing much of anything, but the spring is a lot of work.”

Caduceus patted the man’s shoulders and met his eyes. “I have never been a parent, but I was raised by busy people. I’m sure Melora will guide you just as she guided my father.”

The son spoke up. He was old enough to wed, but only just. His eyes were youthful, and it was clear as day that he was struggling with his mother’s passing. “Why’d they kill her, she never did anything wrong. Better than a saint. Why do gods just take people for no good reason?”

His soothing smile strained into a grimace, though neither mourner caught it, the son looking towards the wall angrily, his father looking to him and chiding.

“The gods maintain order,” Caduceus said. His throat felt dry, and as he explained what he had always been taught, his mind was not on the cadaver in his workroom. “We are pawns in a larger game, and while Melora protects us we still must go when the Raven Queen calls. It was her time, and I’m sure Melora has welcomed her with open arms, as she will one day welcome all of us.”

The father mumbled a prayer of his own, thanked Caduceus for his kindness and apologized for his son’s outburst. It was no mind, Caduceus reassured, but even as he said it he knew the boy’s words had affected him. 

They left through the front entrance after Caduceus provided them with a meal, and he was left to prepare the body and grave with his thoughts swirling at the boy’s comment.

Of course, as a cleric regularly dealing with life and death, the unanswerable question of “why” was not going to stir him of his faith. But it did rest rigidly in his chest, the question he refused to pursue in twenty years silently daring him to speak its name. 

Did Melora intend for him to learn from his grief to better heal others who experienced it? The Clay garden had always been a message to the Archeart that nature was beautiful, was his choice of sculpture in coping just another symbol of this message? Was this a test of his faith, would she one day return Fjord and everything would be well once more? He had once believed this latter idea, and while he still chose it as the truer option, evidence pointing to it became less concrete every year. 

His mind swarmed with doubts and questions, all which he refused to fully ask. Instead he attempted to focus on the task at hand, preparing the body and, when that was completed all too soon, preparing a plot for her to finally rest. 

The next day Caduceus woke with familiarly sore arms before dawn. He had exhausted himself digging the grave, but it was ready for the interment. He had fallen into bed with little preparation, too weary to remove his dirt stained clothes or wash his body of the same material. Even as he stirred, the smell of fresh clay and mud overtook his senses. 

Getting out of bed was a slow process, and making up a bath was enough of an effort he didn’t have energy to do traditionally that he spent his first spell creating water, letting it warm in the front yard while he made a quick breakfast.

He rested in the near simmering water and let it soothe his muscles, not even bothering to scrub away the dirt that thinly cloaked him until the temperature was unpleasantly cool. He rarely enjoyed a bath, associating most anything to do with water with Fjord. He rubbed his skin raw and cleaned beneath his nails, combing his long vibrant hair until he could braid it with ease, putting it up as he generally did before any funerary ceremony.

He stood from the bath and drained it, drying off with a coarse towel and dressing in ceremonial robes. The heavy teal material folded neatly around his body, obscuring any detail of his figure aside from where a belt of mauve leather cinched it at his waist. He collected the materials necessary: his staff, a vial of powdered silver, a candle and an arrangement of flowers for the grave. He prepared two shovels for the father and son, as it was standard for the family to cover the body. He lit incense to purify the space and the ritual. With his preparations complete, he waited for the family.

Knowing they were a family of farmers, Caduceus anticipated reciting the appropriate prayer; of rejuvenating the earth and returning life to the soil for nature to remain plentiful, as well as a prayer to Pelor himself, as the god of agriculture. Due to the manner of her death, he considered adding in a few considerations towards the child left behind, and a word of the Changebringer to bring the child fortune.

But with all funerals, there would be a steady amount of honoring and quoting the Raven Queen and her commandments. As he sat alone in his garden, awaiting the family, he deliberated upon them. 

“Death is the natural end of life. There is no pity for those who have fallen.”

If Fjord was dead, would Caduceus every truly be able to hold this commandment as a holy man ought? He had been ready to watch Fjord die, that was the curse of a Firbolg’s lifespan in contrast to a half-orcs. But he had accepted watching Fjord grow old beside him, to one day bury his beloved. It was harder without a body, without certainty. An itching sensation at the back of his mind reminded him that he could always ask for that definitive answer, but he knew himself for a coward. He wouldn’t dare hear what he could not bear.

“The path of Fate is sacrosanct. Those who pridefully attempt to cast off their destiny must be punished.”

Was this cowardice, then, a sin? Was it not denial of his destiny, of Fjord’s, to assume that which may not be true? He turned a blind eye to Fate, in this action. Did he have any right to tell others what the Matron might intend when he had no intention to accept it himself?

“Undeath is an atrocity. Those who would pervert the transition of the soul must be brought down.”

At least this he could take solace in. He would deny Fjord’s death until his own, but in the event that the evidence was irrefutable, he had no doubts that would be the end of it. He may have spells to amend a death that had come too soon, but by now it would be too late, and he had no intention to break this aspect of his own faith.

He looked across his property to the statuary, thankful that legacy was not interpreted as a form of undeath. 

When he finally heard the father and son on the jungle path, Caduceus forced himself to stir away from his thoughts. This wasn’t about Fjord.

But wasn’t everything, in some way?

He led the ceremony distractedly, ultimately. The family didn’t seem to mind, both too lost in their own thoughts to really take in the scripture Caduceus quoted, let alone the fatigued manner he found himself speaking in. Together, he and the family lowered the body, cleaned and dressed so that it was almost as if she was only sleeping. Caduceus performed a blessing over the plot of land while the men slowly shoveled soil over her, and afterward they bathed to cleanse themselves of death as well as grief. While it was primarily a metaphorical process-- Caduceus treating the body and blessing the soil had ensured no sickness that may have festered would pass-- The cold water was refreshing, and allowed for a moment of vulnerable intimacy with the remaining family and their gods. Often, Caduceus found that mourners who refused to cry in front of others during the burial would disguise the emotional reaction under flowing water. As someone who was raised to respect the value of tears, he ensured that families showered to allow for that opportunity.

Once cleansed, Caduceus clothed them in white garments, the notion of a wintery grief most acute for the family of farmers. Returning to town in grieving attire would allow for them to return undisturbed by most bandits, and the fabric was made of a fiber generally harmful to local predators, fresh fabric still smelling of the plant it came from keeping any wildlife from attacking the two in their weaker emotional state. They could take their time on the way home, and with that time alone Caduceus hoped they may bond and find a way to embrace their life without the newly lost.

He sent them off with encouragement to accept the emotions they were enduring, and to take help when offered. He insisted they return for counsel if deemed necessary, and reminded them that he was not just capable of interring the dead, but healing the living, should they ever find need of his services again. The father shook his hand firmly, the son nodded stiffly, and Caduceus restrained the smile that came from noticing the man’s red eyes.

Watching the two head off onto the verdant path, he found that he might like to take his own advice. It had been a very long time since he’d let himself cry, after all. Perhaps it would do him some good.

-

Had it been much more than an accident in testing, Essek may have reacted more calmly to the volatile explosion of white heat that expanded from the center of his study. Books tumbled from their cases and thick glass shrieked with the strain of holding together. If he’d been calculating for such a reaction, he’d have hardly conducted the test in this room. 

It was only after ensuring that no books, wooden cases, or woolen rugs had been set alight by the spell that he noticed the intent of the spell, just as its volatility, had been much stronger than anticipated.

He’d been testing the spell Veth had so charmingly named Planar Fishing. It was a working title. The basic premise was to summon an item from a dimension you had an anchor to. Caleb had tested it fairly successfully using Frumpkin as an anchor to the Feywild, and Nott had been able to cast the spell with each of the four elemental planes. Incidentally, the spell had no manner of specification, leading to a significant amount of rather useless items from these planes piling up in chests in their homes; flowers and stones and mysterious scales were all well and good, but they were not exactly what they were looking for. None of them had yet to pull anything alive from the planes they’d tested on, and not for lack of subjects, the planes they had access to fairly lively. What was worse, they had no bead on what plane Fjord had ended up in-- the assumption that the trap he’d tripped had in fact sent him to one not wholly certain, either. 

But Essek had wanted to try it on other planes, ones with less material to fish through, as the Feywild and elemental planes were so plentiful. There was plenty of life in the Astral Sea, but little material to “fish” out. So, he procured the skull of a Githyanki and cast it.

On his singed rug lay a well worn and familiar sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, pls let me know what you think and keep an eye out for future updates! Also, I thought I'd ask: should I title each chapter, too?


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